CRIME REPORT: Memphis woman charged in stabbing death

A 27-year-old woman was charged Saturday in the stabbing death of a 33-year-old man she said beat her after she refused to have sex with him and was unable to provide him with a cigarette.

Mercades Barnes was charged with voluntary manslaughter in the death of Cedric Bynum inside apartment No. 4 at 660 Woodstone Circle in Whitehaven.

Police found Bynum at the apartment just after 6 a.m. Saturday with a stab wound in his chest. Barnes immediately told police she had done the stabbing, according to the charges.

Barnes said Bynum began choking her after she refused to have sex with him. She said she stabbed him in self-defense after an argument over the cigarette. Police described her as the victim's girlfriend.

Bynum, she said, pulled her hair, slammed her against a wall inside the living room in the apartment, then choked her before being stabbed, according to the charges.